A better knowledge of Multiple Myeloma (MM) biology has led to the identification of new prognostic factors and the development of new prognostic tools. New drugs have greatly improved the outcome of MM patients both at diagnosis and at relapse. Combining the available drugs, we are now available to induce an unprecedented rate of deep remissions and high sensitivity techniques to detect very low levels of minimal residual disease (MRD) inside and outside of the bone marrow have been developed.
However, first-line therapy is still largely tailored on the eligibility of the patients to undergo high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) and not on the biological characteristics of the disease itself. Moreover, according to the detection of residual disease, treatment could be intensified or de-intensified to improve efficacy or avoid toxicity respectively.
In elderly patients, patient-specific factors may preclude the delivery of optimal treatment, and detection of frailty and frailty-adapted strategies are important to deliver the best therapy avoiding an excess of toxicity. Data on therapies tailored on risk, MRD, frailty, and/or biologically defined groups of patients are still scarce and the “one-size fits all” strategy may not be optimal for the treatment of Multiple Myeloma (MM) anymore. In this light, generating preclinical and clinical data on disease and patient-specific risk factors, prediction of response/resistance to available drugs, techniques to measure MRD is very important.
In this collection, we welcome the submission of Review, Mini-Review and Original Research articles that cover, but are not limited, to the following topics:
1. Treatment strategies for newly diagnosed and relapsed/refractory patients with a focus on risk/frailty/MRD-adapted therapies.
2. Application Including validation of disease-specific and patient-specific prognostic and/or predicting tools identified before treatment
3. Application Including validation of diagnostic and prognostic tools identified during treatment both inside and outside the bone marrow (MRD, imaging, liquid biopsies)
4. Application Including validation of risk stratification scores in patients treated with novel agents
5. Pre-clinical data concerning the MM cells biology and their microenvironment before and after treatment.
Please note manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.
A better knowledge of Multiple Myeloma (MM) biology has led to the identification of new prognostic factors and the development of new prognostic tools. New drugs have greatly improved the outcome of MM patients both at diagnosis and at relapse. Combining the available drugs, we are now available to induce an unprecedented rate of deep remissions and high sensitivity techniques to detect very low levels of minimal residual disease (MRD) inside and outside of the bone marrow have been developed.
However, first-line therapy is still largely tailored on the eligibility of the patients to undergo high-dose chemotherapy followed by autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) and not on the biological characteristics of the disease itself. Moreover, according to the detection of residual disease, treatment could be intensified or de-intensified to improve efficacy or avoid toxicity respectively.
In elderly patients, patient-specific factors may preclude the delivery of optimal treatment, and detection of frailty and frailty-adapted strategies are important to deliver the best therapy avoiding an excess of toxicity. Data on therapies tailored on risk, MRD, frailty, and/or biologically defined groups of patients are still scarce and the “one-size fits all” strategy may not be optimal for the treatment of Multiple Myeloma (MM) anymore. In this light, generating preclinical and clinical data on disease and patient-specific risk factors, prediction of response/resistance to available drugs, techniques to measure MRD is very important.
In this collection, we welcome the submission of Review, Mini-Review and Original Research articles that cover, but are not limited, to the following topics:
1. Treatment strategies for newly diagnosed and relapsed/refractory patients with a focus on risk/frailty/MRD-adapted therapies.
2. Application Including validation of disease-specific and patient-specific prognostic and/or predicting tools identified before treatment
3. Application Including validation of diagnostic and prognostic tools identified during treatment both inside and outside the bone marrow (MRD, imaging, liquid biopsies)
4. Application Including validation of risk stratification scores in patients treated with novel agents
5. Pre-clinical data concerning the MM cells biology and their microenvironment before and after treatment.
Please note manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) will not be accepted in any of the sections of Frontiers in Oncology.
